United States

They had talked and argued for years trying, they said, to find a way to prevent it... but they FAILED. No one can be sure who started it... and really, that's unimportant. It DID happen... the ATOMIC WAR! It was short... lasting only forty-eight hours. Within two weeks, ninety-two percent of the human race had perished to blast and radiation. Those left, with their birth rate below 1.4 per union, turned to robotic automation devices to help them rebuild their cities and maintain a high standard of living. The development of electronic brains had been begun prior to the Atomic War. The first humanoid robot was quite ungainly and its functions were limited. However, humans found it psychologically impossible to work side by side with a machine that they had to converse with and which in most instances, could out-think them. The fascinating story of man and robot is the story of THE HUMANOIDS.